Professional Documents
Culture Documents
While Sherlock Holmes may be a fictional character, many concepts from the book series
are valuable lessons.
Be mindful of your surroundings.
o Notion of seeing vs. observing
Being mindful and in touch with the surrounding environment
Use senses (all five) to our advantage; these play a role in decisionmaking. Not doing so may cause us to fail to realize guiding forces or
things that are important in the decision-making process.
Dont block yourself from the world.
Example of smell
Understand what may make a difference, even things that you may
not initially consider.
What is going on around you? Why/how does it affect you?
o Use the sense to increase mindfulness.
To be mindful is to be aware.
Observation is not, and should not be, limited to our sense of sight.
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Reflection
Sometimes, it is easy to neglect the obvious whether it is through failing to consider a situation
from an open-minded perspective, or just plain ignorance. This article was a good read because it
posed us to think about our surroundings in ways that we may not initially contemplate. When
observing a system, it is not enough to consider it using solely visual stimuli (e.g. seeing); in
the case of a busy intersection, for example, we can deduce information based on sounds, smells,
and (to a limited extent) touch. This is especially important when considering systems at a 6-foot
scale or even lower. In this context, close-looking is open-ended, where we are able to use our
observations from all senses to make inferences, deduce justified conclusions, and act upon them
in an educated manner. I hope that in my project, I will not present and consider just visual
information, but rather share well informed observations that are representative of my overall
system.
Reading Notes 9b: 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design and
Gillette Stadium: Accessible for All
While I had a basic understanding of the Americans with Disabilities Act from past civics
classes, I had not read into the standards in depth, and certainly not from an engineering
perspective. To be frank, having lived in a country that prides itself on freedoms and civil
liberties, I was shocked to realize that a national law providing protections for the handicapped
only took effect as recently as the 1990s. That being said, having seen inadequate infrastructure
in other parts of the world, I am certain and proud that it is our moral duty to provide others with
these fundamental rights better late than never.
Connecting back to the first reading, when designing a system from any scale, but particularly
smaller ones, it is easy to see rather than to observe. This is absolutely the case in scenarios
involving design for differently-abled people. Providing the necessary accessibility requirements
necessitates empathetic understanding, planning, and execution.